Sapere Aude

Businesses need to go a step further under Trump to fight climate change

“The Trump administration appears to be moving in one direction on the issue of climate change with the appointment of climate skeptic Scott Pruitt to head up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a transition team led by and stacked with fossil fuel interests.

Yet many within corporate America are heading in another direction.

Consider Kevin Butt, regional environmental sustainability director for Toyota Motor North America, and his charge to take the company “beyond zero environmental impact” by reducing and eventually eliminating CO₂ emissions from vehicle operation, manufacturing, materials production and energy sources by 2050.

This type of effort is not as crazy as it may seem. Solutions to climate change require new types of aggressive thinking. While global treaties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are important, they are not enough. Eventually society has to go carbon neutral, and then it has to go carbon negative.”